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This book focuses on the apparently surprising convergence between anarchism and eugenics. By tracing the reception of eugenic ideas within five different anarchist movements –Argentina, England, France, Portugal and Spain – the book argues that, in fact, there is ample evidence for anarchist interest in, and implementation of, some form of eugenics. The author argues that this intersection between anarchism and eugenics can be understood as an emanation from anarchism’s nineteenth-century legacy, which harnessed science as a means to change the social world and an ideological commitment to voluntarism as a political praxis. Through the articulation of interest in birth control, ‘neo-Malthusianism’, freedom to choose for women and revolutionary objectives, many anarchists across these five countries provided the basis for the creation of ‘anarchist eugenics’ in the early twentieth century.

This book aims to give new insights into the multifarious worlds of Angela Carter and to re-assess her impact and importance for the twenty-first century. It brings together leading Carter scholars with some emerging academics, in a new approach to her work, which focuses on the diversity of her interests and versatility across different fields. Even where chapters are devoted specifically to her fiction, they tend to concentrate on inter-disciplinary crossings-over as in, for example, psychogeography or translational poetics. This collection is a response to the momentum arising from commemorative events to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary since her death, including the first art exhibition inspired by her life and work. The arts of Angela Carter builds on existing scholarship and makes new interventions in regard to her inter-disciplinarity. The arrangement of the material, indicated by the chapter headings, draws attention to a variety of areas not normally associated with dominant perceptions of Angela Carter. These encompass fashion, art, poetry, music, performance and translation, which will be discussed in a number of historical, literary and cultural contexts. The book will also explore her interests in anthropology and psycho-analysis and engage in current debates relating to gender, feminism and postmodernism.

Car workers’ union activism has long held a strong grip on popular memories of the post-war period. Working in the quintessential industry of modernity their labour militancy has been linked to narratives of economic decline and of rising working-class living standards. Yet despite their centrality to understanding of this period, car workers’ capacity for collective action has often been taken for granted, with mobilisation attributed to uncomplicated economic motivations or the last gasps of a declining “traditional class consciousness”, and the effects of the post-war settlement. This book looks at the changing forms of agency and subjectivity expressed by labour militancy, considering workplace activism in the motor industry as a specific historical creation of post-war Britain, rather than a reflection of “tradition”. It traces the origins of shop-floor organisations which first emerged in the 1950s, studying the processes by which workers built their union cultures, and exploring the capacity of car workers to generate new solidarities and collective values in this period. Focus then turns to the 1960s and 1970s and the social practices and cultural norms that resulted from this cultural assembling, looking to understand how worker activism shaped the agency of car workers in post-war Britain, influencing the forms that strike action took. Through a mixture of oral history interviews, letters, meeting minutes and periodicals, this book analyses the meanings workers attributed to industrial conflict, asking whether factory activism generated attitudes distinct from the dominant values of wider British society.

Beautyscapes explores the rapidly developing global phenomenon of international medical travel, focusing specifically on patient-consumers seeking cosmetic surgery outside their home country and on those who enable them to access treatment abroad, including key figures such as surgeons and facilitators. Documenting the complex and sometimes fraught journeys of those who travel for treatment abroad, as well as the nature and power relations of the transnational IMT industry, this is the first book to focus specifically on cosmetic surgery tourism. A rich and theoretically sophisticated ethnography, Beautyscapes draws on key themes in studies of globalisation and mobility, such as gender and class, neoliberalism, social media, assemblage, conviviality and care, to explain the nature and growing popularity of cosmetic surgery tourism. The book challenges myths about vain and ill-informed travellers seeking surgery from ‘cowboy’ foreign doctors, yet also demonstrates the difficulties and dilemmas that medical tourists – especially cosmetic surgery tourists – face. Vividly illustrated with ethnographic material and with the voices of those directly involved in cosmetic surgery tourism, Beautyscapes is based on a large research project exploring cosmetic surgery journeys from Australia and China to East Asia and from the UK to Europe and North Africa.

This book examines early modern English notions of bodily difference. Tracing how the English valued somatic contrasts, both amongst themselves and, as they ventured into and through the Atlantic, among non-Europeans, this book demonstrates that individuals’ distinctive features were thought to be innate, even as discrete populations were also believed to have fleshly characteristics in common – whether similarities in skin-tone, facial profile, hair colour, or demeanour. According to much scholarship, bodies thought to be constituted from the same four elemental fluids as Adam and Eve’s – the phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholic humours – were not the stuff of visceral inequality. On the contrary, this book finds that people routinely judged and were judged on sight; according to the ostensible balance, or complexion, of their humours. Belief in monogenesis and Christian universalism notwithstanding, people could be sorted on the basis of their looks, and assumptions made about their ancestry, present condition, and future behaviour. Complexions vouched for distinctions in social status, physical cum moral fitness, national allegiance, and religious affiliation. Humoralism inflected both social politics and international relations. If looking at people racially is to group them according to perceived physical contrasts – in the belief these contrasts mark innate, inherited variations in physical ability, mental agility, or moral aptitude – which simultaneously justify their prejudicial treatment relative to one’s own group, then this book demonstrates how and why racism was fitfully part of early modern English culture.

In two parts, the book examines, first, the attempts of three thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century to reconcile, in different socio-cultural contexts, the legacy of idealist philosophy with the claims of empirical social science, and, secondly, the trajectory of Bourdieu’s career in France from philosophy student to sociological researcher to political activist. It traces a progression from thought to action, but an emphasis on action informed by thought. It poses the question whether Bourdieu’s attempted integration of intellectualism and empiricism correlated with his particular socio-historical situation or whether it offers a global paradigm for advancing inter-cultural understanding. The book is of interest in confronting the question whether socio-political organization is best understood by social scientists or by participants in society, by experts or by the populace. It will stimulate general consideration of the relevance of a sociological perspective in everyday life and how much that perspective should be dependent on inherited concepts. Part I analyses the work of Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Part II that of Pierre Bourdieu. The book is methodologically meticulous in situating these works socio-historically. It provides an introduction to some ideas in social philosophy and shows how these ideas became instrumental in generating a theory of practice. The book is aimed at post-graduate students and staff in all disciplines in the Humanities, and Human and Social sciences, but, more generally, it should interest all academics concerned about the contemporary social function of intellectuals.

This book surveys ‘thrift’ through its moral, religious, ethical, political, spiritual and philosophical expressions, focussing in on key moments such as the early Puritans and Post-war rationing, and key characters such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Smiles, and Henry Thoreau. The relationships between thrift and frugality, mindfulness, sustainability, and alternative consumption practices are explained, and connections made between myriad conceptions of thrift and contemporary concerns for how consumer cultures impact scarce resources, wealth distribution, and the Anthropocene. Ultimately, the book returns the reader to an understanding of thrift as it was originally used - to ‘thrive’ - and attempts to re-cast thrift in more collective, economically egalitarian terms, reclaiming it as a genuinely resistant practice. Students, scholars, and general readers across all disciplines and interest areas will find much of interest in this book, which provides a multi-disciplinary look at a highly topical concept.

Cheap Street tells the history of London’s street markets and of the people who bought and sold there. From the 1850s anything that could be bought in a shop in London could also be bought in the street markets, which were the butcher, baker, greengrocer, provision merchant, haberdasher, tailor and furnisher of the working-class city. They sat uncomfortably on the edge of the law, barely tolerated by authorities that did not quite know whether to admire them for their efficient circulation of goods, or to despise them for their unregulated and ‘low’ character. They were the first recourse of immigrants looking to earn a living, and of privileged observers seeking a voyeuristic glimpse of street life. London’s street markets have frequently been overlooked, viewed as anomalous amongst the sophisticated consumer institutions of the modern city, the department stores and West-End shops. Cheap Street shows how the street markets, as an emanation of the informal economy that flourishes in the interstices of urban life, adapted nimbly to urban growth and contributed to consumer modernity, and how in doing so, they propagated myths about what it meant to live in London and be a Londoner. The book analyses the street markets through their legal and economic informality, material culture, sensory affects, and performative character, using varied documentary and visual evidence. It reshapes the interpretation of London’s urban geographies and consumer cultures, offering new insights into London’s history.

This volume discusses the history, culture and social conditions of one of the less well-known periods of ancient Egypt, the Saite or 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC). In the 660’s BC Egypt was a politically fragmented and occupied country. This is an account of how Psamtek I, a local ruler from Sais in Northern Egypt, declared independence from her overlord, the Assyrian empire, and within ten years brought about the reunification of the country after almost 400 years of disunity and periods of foreign domination. Over the next century and a half, the Saite rulers were able to achieve stability and preserve Egypt’s independence as a sovereign state against powerful foreign adversaries. Central government was established, a complex financial administration was developed and her military forces were reorganised. The Saites successfully promoted foreign trade, peoples from different countries settled in Egypt and Egypt recovered a prominent role in the Mediterranean world. There were innovations in culture, religion and technology and Egypt became prosperous. This era was a major historical success and is often neglected in the literature devoted to ancient Egypt. Egypt of the Saite Pharaohs, 664-525 BC reveals the dynamic nature of the period, the astuteness of the Saite rulers and their considerable achievements in the political, economic, administrative and cultural spheres.

This book provides a distinctive and original contribution to the historiography of sport, adding considerably to our understanding of the origins of soccer within the Manchester region. It is the first academic study of the development of association football in Manchester and is directly linked to the debates within sports history on football’s origins. Its regional focus informs the wider debate, contextualising the growth of the sport in the city and identifying communities that propagated and developed football. The period 1840–1919 saw Manchester’s association game develop from an inconsequential, occasionally outlawed activity, into a major business with a variety of popular football clubs and supporting industries. This study of Manchester football considers the sport’s emergence, development and establishment through to its position as the city’s leading team sport. What establishes a football culture and causes it to evolve is not simply the history of a few clubs, governing bodies, local leagues or promoting schools, but a conglomeration of all of these. The book is innovative in its approach to the origins of footballing in Manchester, where the sport has generally been assumed not to have existed until the creation of what became Manchester City and Manchester United.

Fanon, postcolonialism and the ethics of difference raises a host of crucial questions regarding the relevance of Fanon today: in today’s world, where violence and terror have gone global, what conclusions might we draw from Fanon’s work? Should we keep on blaming Fanon for the colonial violence, which he internalized and struggled against, and overlook the fact that the very Manichaeism that previously governed the economy of colonial societies is now generating violence and terror on a global scale? Has the new humanism which he inaugurates in the concluding section of The Wretched of the Earth turned out to be nothing but a vain plea? What grounds for optimism does he allow us, if any? What is to be salvaged from his ethics and politics in this age of globalization? Fanon, postcolonialism and the ethics of difference offers a new reading of Fanon’s work, challenging many of the reconstructions of Fanon in critical and postcolonial theory and in cultural studies and probing a host of crucial issues: the intersectionality of gender and colonial politics; the biopolitics of colonialism; Marxism and decolonization; tradition, translation and humanism. Fanon, postcolonialism and the ethics of difference underscores the ethical dimension of Fanon’s work by focusing on his project of decolonization and humanism.

In this broad sweep, Mayo explores dominant European discourses of Higher education, in the contexts of different globalisations and Neoliberalism, and examines its extension to a specific region. It explores alternatives in thinking and practice including those at the grassroots, also providing a situationally-grounded project of university-community engagement. Signposts for further directions for Higher Education LLL, with a social justice purpose, are provided.

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable for studying the past. Yet their views on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ remarkably, as do their models of how to be a historian (‘scholarly personae’). This volume explores why scholarly personae were, and are, so important to historians as to generate lots of debate. Why do historians seldom agree on the marks of a good historian? What impact do these disagreements have on historical research, teaching and outreach? And what does this tell about the unity, or disunity, of the field called historical studies? In addressing these questions, How to be a historian develops a fascinating new perspective on the history of historiography. It challenges conventional narratives of professionalization by demonstrating that the identity of the ‘professional’ was often contested. At the same time, it shows that personae could be remarkably stable, especially in relation to race, class and gender assumptions. With chapters by Monika Baár, Ian Hunter, Q. Edward Wang and other recognized specialists, How to be a historian covers historical studies across Europe, North America, Africa and East Asia, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes alike. The volume will appeal not only to readers of historiography, but to all historians who occasionally wonder: what kind of a historian do I want to be?

This is the first interdisciplinary exploration of machine culture in Italian futurism after the First World War. The machine was a primary concern for the futuristi. As well as being a material tool in the factory it was a social and political agent, an aesthetic emblem, a metonymy of modernity and international circulation and a living symbol of past crafts and technologies. Exploring literature, the visual and performing arts, photography, music and film, the book uses the lens of European machine culture to elucidate the work of a broad set of artists and practitioners, including Censi, Depero, Marinetti, Munari and Prampolini. The machine emerges here as an archaeology of technology in modernity: the time machine of futurism.

‘A Living Tomb for Women’ represents the first comprehensive history of marital violence in modern Ireland, from the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922 to the passage of the Domestic Violence Act and the legalisation of divorce in 1996. Based upon extensive research of under-used court records, this groundbreaking study sheds light on the attitudes, practices, and laws surrounding marital violence in twentieth-century Ireland. While many men beat their wives with impunity throughout this period, victims of marital violence had little refuge for at least fifty years after independence. During a time when most abused wives remained locked in violent marriages, this book explores the ways in which men, women, and children responded to marital violence. It raises important questions about women’s status within marriage and society, the nature of family life, and the changing ideals and lived realities of the modern marital experience in Ireland.

This book explores the eight-month wave of mutinies in the French infantry and navy in 1919. This revolt stretched from France's intervention against the Soviet Union through the Black Sea, into the Mediterranean and finally resulting in unrest in France's naval ports. As a consequence, mutineers faced courts martial, the threat of the death penalty and years of hard labour. This research is the result of careful scrutiny of official records and, more importantly, the testimony of dozens of mutineers. It is the first study to try to understand the world of the mutineers, assessing their own words for the traces of their sensory perceptions, their emotions and their thought processes. It shows that the conventional understanding of the mutinies as simple war-weariness and low morale as inadequate. It demonstrates that an emotional gulf separated officers and the ranks, who simply did not speak the same language. It reveals the soundscape (its silences, shouts and songs) and visual aspect of the mutiny. The revolt entailed emotional sequences ending in a deep ambivalence and sense of despair or regret. It also considers how mutineer memories persisted after the events in the face of official censorship, repression and the French Communist Party's co-option of the mutiny. This text will interest students, general readers and scholars of the both Great War and its contentious aftermath. Setting the mutiny in the transnational context, it will contribute to the growing interest in 1919 as the Twentieth Century's most unruly year.

Women before the court: Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American World, 1600–1800 is a ground-breaking study of women in Britain and British America. Drawing from archival sources from both sides of the Atlantic, it offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women’s legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American law. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women’s legal knowledge, and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, and husbands and wives. While in the seventeenth century these relationships had been defined by mutual obligations of authority and submission, the economic and legal developments of the eighteenth century gave women increasing opportunities to break the patriarchal mould. This book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, students of legal history and to laypeople interested in how women navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them in the past. It is packed with fascinating (and sometimes shocking) stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. This study adds a valuable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.